Network Security

Essentials
Chapter 1
Fourth Edition
by William Stallings

Lecture slides by Lawrie Brown

The art of war teaches us to rely not on the
likelihood of the enemy's not coming, but
on our own readiness to receive him; not
on the chance of his not attacking, but
rather on the fact that we have made our
position unassailable.
—The Art of War, Sun Tzu
 The combination of space, time, and
strength that must be considered as the
basic elements of this theory of defense
makes this a fairly complicated matter.
Consequently, it is not easy to find a fixed
point of departure..
— On War, Carl Von Clausewitz
 Computer Security
 theprotection afforded to an automated
information system in order to attain the
applicable objectives of preserving the
integrity, availability and confidentiality of
information system resources (includes
hardware, software, firmware,
information/data, and telecommunications)
Key Security Concepts
 Levels of Impact
 candefine 3 levels of impact from a
security breach
 Low
 Moderate
 High
 Examples of Security
Requirements
 confidentiality – student grades
 integrity – patient information
 availability – authentication service
Computer Security Challenges
1. not simple
2. must consider potential attacks
3. procedures used counter-intuitive
4. involve algorithms and secret info
5. must decide where to deploy mechanisms
6. battle of wits between attacker / admin
7. not perceived on benefit until fails
8. requires regular monitoring
9. too often an after-thought
10. regarded as impediment to using system
 OSI Security Architecture
 ITU-T X.800 “Security Architecture for OSI”
 defines a systematic way of defining and
providing security requirements
 for us it provides a useful, if abstract,
overview of concepts we will study
 Aspects of Security
 consider 3 aspects of information security:
 security attack
 security mechanism
 security service
 note terms
 threat – a potential for violation of security
 attack – an assault on system security, a
deliberate attempt to evade security services
Passive Attacks
Active Attacks
 Security Service
 enhance security of data processing systems
and information transfers of an organization
 intended to counter security attacks
 using one or more security mechanisms
 often replicates functions normally associated
with physical documents
• which, for example, have signatures, dates; need
protection from disclosure, tampering, or
destruction; be notarized or witnessed; be
recorded or licensed
 Security Services
 X.800:
“a service provided by a protocol layer of
communicating open systems, which ensures
adequate security of the systems or of data
transfers”

 RFC 2828:
“a processing or communication service
provided by a system to give a specific kind of
protection to system resources”
 Security Services (X.800)
 Authentication - assurance that communicating
entity is the one claimed
 have both peer-entity & data origin authentication
 Access Control - prevention of the
unauthorized use of a resource
 Data Confidentiality –protection of data from
unauthorized disclosure
 Data Integrity - assurance that data received is
as sent by an authorized entity
 Non-Repudiation - protection against denial by
one of the parties in a communication
 Availability – resource accessible/usable
 Security Mechanism
 feature designed to detect, prevent, or
recover from a security attack
 no single mechanism that will support all
services required
 however one particular element underlies
many of the security mechanisms in use:
 cryptographic techniques
 hence our focus on this topic
 Security Mechanisms (X.800)
 specific security mechanisms:
 encipherment, digital signatures, access

controls, data integrity, authentication

exchange, traffic padding, routing control,
notarization
 pervasive security mechanisms:
 trusted functionality, security labels, event

detection, security audit trails, security

recovery
Model for Network Security
 Model for Network Security
 using this model requires us to:
1. design a suitable algorithm for the security
transformation
2. generate the secret information (keys) used
by the algorithm
3. develop methods to distribute and share the
secret information
4. specify a protocol enabling the principals to
use the transformation and secret
information for a security service
Model for Network Access
Security
 Model for Network Access
Security
 using this model requires us to:
1. select appropriate gatekeeper functions to
identify users
2. implement security controls to ensure only
authorised users access designated
information or resources
 Summary
 topicroadmap & standards organizations
 security concepts:
 confidentiality, integrity, availability
 X.800 security architecture
 security attacks, services, mechanisms
 models for network (access) security